Mowbray gives Coventry City a warning ahead of Sheffield United clash

Chris Holt

Coventry City may be riding high in one of League One’s automatic promotion spots, but boss Tony Mowbray believes the division is so tight that his team can’t afford to rest easy.

Unlike last season when Bristol City became clear favourites to go up from a relatively early stage, this time around there are only two points between the Sky Blues in second and Burton Albion on top and just eight points separate Mowbray’s side and Bradford in ninth.

And the former Middlesbrough manager concedes that as good as his side are, they aren’t head and shoulders above their rivals.

“I think that we are a decent team and we are where we are on merit,” said Mowbray. “There haven’t been too many times when I’ve felt ‘we were lucky today.’

“But we’re not miles better than everybody else; it’s not like Bristol City last year when they just had too much for a lot of teams.

“This is a tight league and it’s getting tighter – you’ve only got to look at Peterborough coming up and we know that Wigan are going to be strong.

“The results show what a competitive league this is and if we’re going to stay where we are we have to be right every week.

“We’ve found a level of consistency but if we’re not at 100 per cent we’ll drop points, whether that’s through a couple of individual errors, like against Doncaster, or because we don’t make the most of our scoring opportunities.”